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THE QUEST 



OF THE 



PERFECT RELIGION. 



Baccalaureate Address by 



President IV. F. Warren, S.T.D., LL.D. 



1886. 



THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE GRADUATING CLASSES OF BOSTON 
"UNIVERSITY, BY 

PRESIDENT W. v F: WARREN, S.T.D., LL.D., 



June 1, 1886. 



BOSTON : 
RAND AVERY COMPANY. 

jFrankltn ^xtm. 
1887. 



THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 



A few evenings since, as I was walking up one of the main 
streets of Tokio, I encountered an experience not soon to be 
forgotten. My companion, who was the American minister to 
the Mikado's court, was pointing out to me at a considerable 
distance a large hall, called the Meiji Kuaido, and explaining 
that though now belonging to the government, it was originally 
built in a spirit of opposition to Christian missions and was de- 
signed to be a kind of headquarters for all who wished to 
rehabilitate the old religions, or in any way to oppose the spread 
of the Christian faith. While he was narrating some incidents 
connected with it we came nearer and nearer, but soon found 
our further progress blocked by an altogether unprecedented 
crowd of people, evidently made up of the most diverse nationali- 
ties. It filled not only the approaches to the building, but also 
the whole street for some distance in front and on either side. 
Upon inquiry we learned that a convention of quite unusual 
interest was in progress and that all these people which the 
building could not contain were waiting to learn what they 
could of the progress of the deliberations within. One man 
kindly showed us a copy of the call under which the assembly 
had been brought together. At its top I read these words : 
" "World's Convention for the Definition and Promulgation of a 
Perfect and Universal Religion." The provisions under which 
the Delegates were to be appointed, and the Convention organ- 
ized, were carefully drawn and admirably adapted to secure a 
most weighty and representative body. Nearly every religion 

1 Baccalaureate Address by Rev. William F. Warren, S.T.D., LL.D., 
President of Boston University. Delivered before tbe graduating classes 
of tbe University, in Jacob Sleeper Hall, on Tuesday, June 1, 1886. [Soon 
after translated into Japanese, and published in Yokohama ; also into 
Spanish, and published in the city of Mexico,] 



4 THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 

and sect I had ever heard of — except the Christian — was 
named and provided for. Of course I was at once intensely in- 
terested to see so rare a body — the first of its kind in the 
history of the world. But the crowd was so dense I was almost 
in despair. Fortunately in our extremity two stout policemen 
recognized my companion, and knowing his ambassadorial char- 
acter undertook to make a way for us and to bring us into 
the hall. The struggle was long and severe, but at last our 
faithful guides succeeded in edging us into an overcrowded 
balcony to a standing-place from which nearly the whole body 
of the delegates could be seen. Never can I forget that manjr 
hued and strangely clad assembly. Nearly every delegation had 
some sacred banner, or other symbol, by which it might be dis- 
tinguished. In the centre of the hall was the yellow silken 
banner of the Chinese Dragon. On the left I saw the crescent 
of Islam ; on the right the streamers of the Grand Lama of 
Thibet. Not far away was the seven-storied sacred umbrella of 
Burmah, and beyond it the gaudy feather-work of a dusk}' dele- 
gation from Ashantee. In one corner I even thought I recog- 
nized the totem of one of our Indian tribes of Alaska. 

On the programme there were five questions, each evidently 
framed with a view to make its discussion and answer contrib- 
ute toward the common end, the definition of a perfect and uni- 
versal religion. The first read as follows : ' ' Can there be 
more than one perfect religion?" The opening of the discus- 
sion of this had been assigned to a great Buddhist teacher from 
Ceylon. The second question, to be opened by a Mohamme- 
dan, was : " What kind of an object of worship must a perfect 
religion present? " The third was assigned to a Taoist, and was 
thus formulated: "What must a perfect religion demand of, 
and promise to, the sincere worshipper? " The fourth, assigned 
to a Hindu pundit, was the following : " In what relation must 
the divine object and the human subject stand to each other in 
a perfect religion ? " The fifth and last question read: "By 
what credentials shall a perfect religion, if ever found, be 
known ? ' ' The honor and responsibility of opening this last 
and highest of the proposed discussions was reserved to the 
official head of the Shinto priesthood of Japan, the highest 
representative of the ancestral faith of the Empire. 



THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 5 

As soon as my friend and I could get our bearings, we were 
pleased to find that only one of the questions had been discussed 
and acted upon by the Convention before our arrival. We were 
told that the assembly had been opened by the President desig- 
nated in the call ; and that nothing on earth was ever more 
impressive than the three minutes of silent prayer which fol- 
lowed the uplifting of the Chairman's hand and eye. After 
this there had been a brief address of welcome from the Com- 
mittee of Arrangements, a few words of thanks from the Presi- 
dent in response ; then a short opening address by the President, 
and the introduction of the distinguished Buddhist representa- 
tive from Ceylon, who was to discuss the question: "Can 
there be more than one perfect religion?" To a Buddhist, 
there could be, of course, but one answer to this question, and 
that a negative. But he argued it — as our informants told us 
— with wonderful tact as well as power. He kept the qualifica- 
tion "perfect "so prominently before his hearers' minds that 
however accustomed any of them might be to think and say that 
there may be and are many good religions, none could fail to 
see that of perfect religions there could be but one. He also 
carefully abstained from identifying his own system with the 
perfect religion, and thus avoided the mistake of exciting the 
jealousy of rival religionists. So complete had been his success, 
that after a short discussion in which several very diverse 
speakers participated, a venerable Parsee had moved, and just 
before our arrival the Convention had unanimously adopted the 
following resolution: "Resolved, that in the opinion of this 
World's Convention there can be but one perfect religion." 

While we were getting hold of these facts we lost the Presi- 
dent's introduction of the second pre-appointed speaker. We 
soon learned, however, that he was the senior moulvie of the 
great Mohammedan University at Cairo, a school of Islam in 
which there are all the time about ten thousand students in 
preparation for the duties of public religious teachers and 
chanters of prayers. His piercing eye and snow-white beard 
and vigorous frame would have made him anywhere a man of 
mark. Seated after his manner of teaching in the mosque upon 
a low bamboo frame, clad in his official robe, he looked like a 
resurrected Old Testament prophet — an Isaiah in living form 



6 THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 

before us. At first I wondered if he would be able to speak to 
so modern a question as the one assigned him : ' ' What kind of 
an object of worship must a perfect religion present ? ' ' 

Time would fail me were I to attempt to report with any ful- 
ness his rhythmic speech. It was Oriental through and through 
— quaint, poetic, full of apothegms, proverbs, parables, — but 
it conclusively answered the question. He made even the 
feather- decked gri-gri worshippers of Western Africa see that a 
god who knows much about his worshipper, and can do great 
things for him, is more perfect than a god who knows little and 
can do but little. Then arguing up and up, he made it plain to 
every intelligence that a perfect religion necessarily demands a 
god possessing all knowledge and all power. It becomes a per- 
fect religion only by presenting to the worshipper, as the su- 
preme object of obedience, love and service, a perfect being. 
He showed also that perfection in an object of worship required 
that it be a living object, that it have intelligence, rational feel- 
ings and purposes, in a word, that it possess real and complete 
personality. It must be possible to address him as a person- 
ality. He needs to be in every place, to be before all things, 
in all things, above all things. Limit him in any respect and the 
religion you present becomes less than perfect. 

This was the thought stripped of all its weird and Oriental 
adornments. But as he expanded and enforced it his e} r e 
kindled and his chant-like speech rose and fell, and rose and 
fell, until we hardly knew whether we were in the bod} r or out 
of the body, so wondrous was the spell wherewith he had bound 
us. 

He was followed by an eloquent representative of the Brahmo 
Somaj, and he in turn by a Persian Babist, both of whom argued 
in the same line with such effect, that when a picturesquely 
turbaned representative of the religion of the Sikhs gained the 
floor and moved that it be the sense of the Convention that a 
perfect religion must present a perfect god, the whole vast 
assembly was found to be a unit in affirming this grand declara- 
tion. 

Next, of course, came the third question: "What must a 
perfect religion demand of the sincere worshipper, and what 
must it promise to him ? " To open its discussion the appointed 



THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 7 

Taoist teacher was politely introduced. As his noble form 
advanced quietly to the front of the platform in the costume of 
a Chinese Mandarin of the highest rank, it was at once evident 
that the better side of Taoism was to be represented, — the ideas 
of the Tao-teh-king, and not the superstition and jugglery of 
modern popular Taoism. 

He began by saying that it seemed proper for him to start 
out from the point T '^re the preceding discussion had stopped, 
the Convention ha j, already voted that there could be but 
one perfect religion, and that this religion in order to be perfect 
must present a perfect object of worship. With both of these 
propositions he said he was in full accord, provided only that it 
be constantly borne in mind that the whole discussion related to 
a purely abstract or hypothetical question. 

"Now," said he, " if a man really had a perfect object of 
worship, it is plain that his duty toward it would be very differ- 
ent from that he owes to any of those finite and limited and 
imperfect divinities which we and our fathers have been accus- 
tomed to worship. Our duties to these, and their duties to us, 
are more analogous to our duty to observe courtesy toward our 
fellowmen and kindness toward those below us. The moment 
we picture to ourselves a perfect God, the maker, upholder and 
governor of all beings, lord even of the celestial and terrestrial 
spirits whom we are in the habit of worshipping, that moment 
we see that the worship of such a being would of necessity be 
something very different. As giver of all our powers and possi- 
bilities, he could justly demand that we employ them all for the 
accomplishment of the purpose for which he gave them. Indeed 
were he a perfectly rational being it would seem impossible that 
he should require less. 

"On the other hand such a being would of necessity pos- 
sess both the power and the inclination to give to his sincere 
worshipper the perfect fruit of genuine piety. This can be 
nothing less than perfect virtue and even exquisite delight in 
virtue. In a perfect piety all self-conflict, all internal resistance 
to good, all self-will, must be absolutely and totally eliminated. 
All fear — even of that perfect Being — would have to be ab- 
sent ; nay, it would have to be transmuted into eager uninter- 
mittent love. On the other hand, how unutterably would a 



8 THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 

perfect object of worship love and bless a perfectly sincere 
worshipper ! " 

After many other touching words, particularly upon the woe- 
ful contrast between the ideal and the actual in life, and upon 
the arduousness of the struggle for virtue under every religion, 
he closed by submitting the following proposition for the further 
consideration of the Convention: "Resolved, that a perfect 
religion will have to demand of man a perfect surrender of will 
and life to a perfect object of worship, and will have to promise 
him a perfect freedom and satisfaction in the life of goodness." 

A Sufi from Ispahan, a Theosophist from Bombay, and vari- 
ous other speakers followed, all very nearly agreeing with the 
first, but some of them preferring a different wording of the 
resolution. Various amendments were proposed and discussed, 
until at length the following substitute was offered : "Resolved, 
that if a perfect religion were possible to imperfect men, it would 
require of the worshipper a perfect devotion to a perfect god, 
and would demand of the perfect god a perfect ultimate beatifi- 
cation of the worshipper." This was unanimously and even 
enthusiastically adopted. 

Question four was now in order. The President rose and 
said : "The fourth question reads as follows : ' In what relation 
must the divine object and the human subject stand to each 
other in a perfect religion ? ' The discussion of this question is 
to be opened by one who has himself ofttimes been the recipient 
of divine worship, and who represents an ancient and powerful 
priesthood believed by millions to be a real embodiment of the 
one divine and eternal Spirit. I have the honor to present to 
the Convention the venerated head of all the sacred houses of 
the Brahmins in the holy city of Benares." 

Calm as his own imposing religion, yet keener than any who 
had preceded him, the Hindu addressed himself to his allotted 
task. For twenty minutes he held every eye and commanded 
every mind. How shall I give you any conception of that cap- 
tivating discourse ? The following is but the barest thread to 
intimate the great truths touched upon by his master hand. 

He began by saying that some personal relationship between 
the worshipper and the worshipped was necessarily involved in 
the very idea of worship. In this act the worshipper is think- 



THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 9 

ing of the object of his worship, otherwise he is not worshipping. 
So the being worshipped is thinking of his worshipper, other- 
wise he is not receiving the worship. Here, then, is mutual 
simultaneous thought. Each has a place in the consciousness of 
the other. To this extent they possess a common consciousness. 
In this fellowship of mutual thought they are mutually related, 
by it they are vitally and personally connected. 

This connection may, of course, be of two kinds. If the god 
is angry with his worshipper, or the worshipper with his god, 
the relationship is one of hatred and antagonism. If, on the 
other hand, it is a relation of mutual inclination, — the man sin- 
cerely seeking to please his god, and the god sincerely seeking to 
bless his worshipper, it is, of course, a relationship of amity, of 
good fellowship, of mutual love. But all religions agree that the 
first of these relationships, that of enmity and estrangement, is ab- 
normal, one which ought not to be. All religions aim to remove 
or to transform such a relationship wherever it exists. It is there- 
fore plain that the perfect religion, if there be one, must require 
and make the personal relationship between the worshipper and 
the worshipped a relation of mutual benevolence — a relation of 
mutual love. Nowhere can there be a perfect religion if the 
man do not sincerely love his god, and if the god do not sin- 
cerely love his worshipper. 

Here the speaker raised a most interesting question as to 
degree. To what extent ought this love to go ? There could 
be but one answer. In a perfect religion the love of the wor- 
shipper for the worshipped must of course be the strongest 
possible, particularly as the worshipped is himself all-perfect, 
and hence all- worthy of this love. So, on the other hand, the 
love of the worshipped toward the worshipper ought to be the 
very strongest possible. "What then is the strongest possible 
love which the divine can bear to the human and the human to 
the divine? 

I cannot enough regret that my limits compel me to suppress 
his discussion of this pregnant question. I can only say that 
from point to point he carried the convictions of his vast audi- 
ence until he had triumphantly demonstrated three far-reaching 
propositions : (1) That the ever higher and more perfect devo- 
tion of a worshipper can never reach its supreme intensity until 



10 THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 

he is read} 7 , and even desirous, to merge his very will and life 
and being in the will and life and being of the all-perfect object 
of his worship. (2) That the gracious disposition of the object 
worshipped toward the worshipper can never reach its supreme 
intensity until the worshipped being is ready, and desirous, to 
descend from the divine form and mode of being and, in an 
avatar of compassionate love, take on the form and the limitations 
of his human worshipper. (3) That in a perfect religion the 
human subject and the divine object must be set in such rela- 
tions that it shall be possible for God to become a partaker of 
human nature, and for man in some sense to become a partaker 
of the divine nature. 

Profound was the silence which followed this wonderful dis- 
course. The first to break it was a Professor in the Imperial 
University of Tokio, a man who, though of European birth, was 
in complete sympatlry with the purposes of the Convention. 
After highly complimenting the Brahmin speaker, he said that 
he himself had long been an admiring student of India's sacred 
books. With the permission of the Convention he would like 
to recite a few lines from one of them, the Isa Upanishad, which 
seemed to him admirably to express the true relation subsisting 
between the worshipping* soul and the Infinite. He then gave 
the following : 

Whate'er exists within this universe 
Is all to be regarded as enveloped 
By the great Lord, as if wrapped in a vesture. 
There is one only being who exists 
Unmoved, yet moving swifter than the mind; 
Who far outstrips the senses, tho' as gods 
They strive to reach him ; who himself at rest 
Transcends the fleetest flight of other beings; 
Who like the air supports all vital action. 
He moves, yet moves not; he is far, yet near; 
He is within tbis universe. Whoe'er beholds 
All living creatures as in him, and him — 
The universal Spirit — as in all, 
Henceforth regards no creature with contempt. 

" Now here " — continued the Professor — "here we have the 
true conception admirably expressed. Because the Universal 
Spirit is in all things, even in the worshipper, and on the other 



THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 11 

hand all things, even the worshipper, are in this Universal Spirit, 
it is more than possible — it is inevitable — that the divine should 
have participancy in the human and the human in the divine. 
Few of the great religions of the world have failed to recognize in 
some way this basal truth. Even the Shamans of the barbarous 
tribes claim to exercise divine powers only when personally pos- 
sessed of divine spirits. In Thibet the faithful see in the distin- 
guished head of their hierarchy, the Dalai Lama, — with whose 
presence we to-day are honored, — a true divine incarnation. 
For ages here in Japan the sacred person of the Mikado has been 
recognized as a god in human form. The founders of nearry all 
great religions and states have been held to be descendants, or 
impersonations, of the gods. In like manner the apotheosis of 
dying emperors, Roman and other, shows how natural is the faith 
that good and great men can take on the nature and the life 
divine. Ask India's hundreds of millions. They all affirm that 
every human being may aspire to ultimate and absolute identi- 
fication with God. The even more numerous followers of the 
Buddha hold that, in his enlightenment, Sakya Muni was far 
superior to any god. Now if such are the conceptions of the 
actual religions, how certain is it that the ideal, the perfect reli- 
gion, must provide a recognition of them. I move you, Mr. 
President, that the propositions of our Brahmin orator from 
Benares be adopted as the voice of this Convention." 

No speaker appearing in the negative, the motion was put and 
carried without dissent. 

Thus, with astonishing unanimity, the assembly had reached 
the final question upon the programme : ' ' By what credentials 
shall a perfect religion be known ? ' ' 

Intenser than ever grew the interest of the delegates. On 
the answer to this question hung all their hopes as to any prac- 
tically useful outcome from the holding of this great Ecumenical 
Convention. Doubly intense was the interest of the on-looking 
Japanese, for here, in the presence of the world's religions, the 
highest and most authoritative religious voice of their Empire 
was now to be heard. Breathless was the entire throng as the 
speaker began : 

" Hail to the Supreme Spirit of Truth. Praise to the Kami of 
kami — the living essence of the everlasting, ever-living Light. 



12 THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 

"Why are we here, brothers from all climes, why are we' 
here in serious search for the one true and perfect Wa}^ ? It is 
because He, in whom are all things, and who is in all things — 
as sang that Hindu poet — is yearning with ineffable affection 
to be known of us, his earthly offspring, and to know us as his 
own. Only lately have I learned this secret. Only since my 
invitation to address this World's Convention have my eyes 
been opened to the blessed truth. Never before had I been led 
to meditate upon the necessaiy implications of a religion abso- 
lutely perfect. In preparation for my question I was compelled 
thus to meditate. Scarce had I addressed myself to my task 
before I began to see what you have seen, and to lay down the 
propositions which you to-day in due succession have been lay- 
ing down. I could not help discerning that there can be but 
one religion truly perfect ; that a religion can never be perfect 
unless it present a perfect God ; that no religion can be perfect 
which does not deliver man from sin and death and dower him 
with pure and everlasting blessedness. I could not help per- 
ceiving that no religion could ever claim perfection in which any 
gulf is left unfilled between the worshipper and the object of his 
worship. Oppressed and almost overwhelmed by these great 
thoughts, convinced that there was no such perfect religion in 
existence, nor any credential hy which it could be known, I was 
yesterday morning alone, in a favorite hermitage by the sound- 
ing sea, near Yokohama. The whole night I had passed in 
sleeplessness and fasting. No light had dawned upon my mind. 
To cool nry fevered brain, I strolled upon the seashore up and 
down, and listened to the solemn beatings of the billows on the 
sand. 

" Here, in one of my turns, I fell in with a stranger — a 
sailor fresh from his ship. In conversation I quickly learned 
that he had followed the sea from early life, that he had been 
quite round the world, and had seen more wonders than any 
man it had ever been nvy fortune to meet. Long time we 
talked together of lands and peoples underneath the world and 
all around its great circumference. Repeatedly I was on the 
point of opening my heart to this plain man and of asking him 
whether in all his world-wide wanderings he had anywhere 
found a religion more perfect than that of our ancestors. Every 



THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 13 

time however I checked myself. I was confident that he would 
not long remain in ignorance of my character and office, and 
how could I, chief priest of my nation, betray to him such doubt 
as this my question would imply. I was too proud to place my- 
self in such an attitude of personal inquiry. And yet perpet- 
ually this thought recurred : This man has seen cities and 
mountains and rivers and peoples which you have never seen, 
and you feel no humiliation in being a learner in these things ; 
— why hesitate to ascertain if in religion he may not equally be 
able to give fresh light and information. At last I broke my 
proud reserve, and said : ' You must have seen something of 
the chief religions of the whole world as well. Now, which 
among them all, strikes you as the best? ' 

" ' I have seen but one,' was the laconic reply. 

" ' What mean you? ' I rejoined. ' You have told me of a 
score of peoples and lands and cities whose temples you must 
have seen, and whose rites you must have witnessed.' 

" ' There is but one religion,' he repeated. 

" ' Explain,' I demanded of him again. 

" ' How many do you make? ' he said, evading my question. 

" I paused a moment. I was about to answer : ' At least a 
larger number than there are of different tribes and peoples,' — 
but in my hesitation I was struck by the strange agree^eM be- 
tween his enigmatic utterance and my own previous conclusion 
that there could be but one perfect religion. Someway I yielded 
to the impulse to mention the coincidence. 'Do you mean,' I 
added, ' that there can be but one religion worthy of the name? ' 

"My sacrifice of pride had its reward. It won an answering 
confidence, and unsealed the stranger's lips. 

" ' Have you time,' he said, ' to hear a sailor's story? More 
than sixty years ago I was born in a beautiful home hard by the 
base of our holy mountain, the Fusijama. This ver} r evening I 
start to visit the scenes of my boyhood, after an absence of 
more than forty years. My father and mother were persons of 
deep piety, and from the first had dedicated me, as their first- 
born, to the service of the gods. At an early age I was placed 
in the care of a community of priests who kept one of the chief 
shrines of my native province. Here I was to be trained up for 
the same holy priesthood. For some years I was delighted with 



14 THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 

my companions, with my tasks, and with my prospects. But 
at length, as I grew more and more mature, and as my medita- 
tions turned oftener upon the mysteries of the world and of life, 
an inexpressible sadness gradually mastered me. I shrank from 
the calling to which I had been destined. I said to myself, How 
can I teach men the way of the gods when I know it not myself? 
How long have I yearned to find the way of peace and the way 
of virtue ! How long have I cried unto all the kami of heaven 
and all the kami of earth to teach it me ! Yet even while I see 
the good I love that which is not good. I do myself the things 
which I condemn in others. I teach others to be truthful, but 
before an hour has passed I have lied to myself, — have done or 
said what I had promised myself I would not. I love myself 
more than I love virtue, and then I hate nryself because I love 
myself so well. I am at war within. O who shall deliver me, 
who can give me peace ? 

" ' As time passed on I became more and more the prey of 
this consuming melancholy. The time was at hand when my 
period of pupilage was to end and I was to be given the dignity 
of full admission to the sacred priesthood. The night before 
the day appointed for the ceremony my agony was too great for 
human endurance. Under the friendly cover of the darkness I 
fled from the sacred precincts of the temple, fled from the lov- 
ing parents and friends who had come to witness my promo- 
tion. A wretched fugitive I arrived at this very port which 
now stretches itself out before our eyes. Here I shipped as a 
sailor and sought the uttermost parts of the earth. 

" ' Years on years I kept to the high seas, alwa} T s choosing 
the ships which would take me farthest from the scenes with 
which I had become familiar. All great ports I visited, many 
a language I learned. Steadily I prayed the gods some time 
to bring me to some haven where I might learn the secret of a 
holy peace within. 

" ' At last one day — I can never forget it — in a great city 
many thousand miles toward the sunrise, a city which is the 
commercial metropolis of the greatest republic in the world, — 
I was pacing heavy-hearted up and down a massive pier at 
which lay vessels from man}' a nation. The wharves were per- 
fectly quiet for it was a holy day. I was sadder than usual for I 



THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 15 

was thinking of my useless pikers. I was saj'ing to myself : 
I am as blind as ever, as much at war within. So many, many 
years have I prayed and waited, and waited and pra3 r ed. The 
gods have neither brought me to the truth nor the truth to me. 
In my bitterness I said, The gods themselves are false, men's 
faith in them is false. There are no gods, there can be none. 
They would have some compassion, they would regard my 
cries. Bursting into tears, I sobbed out : I cannot live in 
such a world. I cannot live. Let me but sink in death's eter- 
nal night. And as I sobbed out the bitter cry the rippling 
water in the dock sparkled in my eyes and seemed to say, 
Come, come, one brave leap only and I will give thee peace ! 

" 'Just then a handsome stranger, arrested perhaps by my 
strange behavior, stopped in passing and spoke to me. In 
words of tender sympathy he asked my trouble. Too weak to 
resist, I told him all. How beamed his face with gladness ! 
"Come with me," he said, "this very day your year-long 
prayers are to be answered." I followed, and a few rods dis- 
tant he showed me what I had never seen before, a floating 
temple which he had in charge. It was dedicated, I was told, to 
the great God. And when I asked which great god, the priest of 
the beaming countenance said : " Have you never heard of the 
great King above all gods? " Then he brought out a holy book 
and read to me these words: " O come let us sing unto the 
Lord ; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. 
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make 
a joyful noise unto him with psalms. For the Lord is a great 
God and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the 
deep places of the earth ; the strength of the hills is his also. 
The sea is his and he made it, and his hands formed the dry 
land. O come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel be- 
fore the Lord our maker. He is our God, and we are the 
people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand." 

" 'Then this strangely joyful man — Hedstrom was his name 
— told me that this great God did truly care for every man who 
truly yearns, for inward peace. He said he was a rewarder of 
all who diligently seek him ; that he so loved the world that he 
gave his only begotten Son for the saving of all who want to 
be saved from sin, from self condemnation and despair. He 



16 THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 

assured me over and over that this divine Son was both able and 
willing to save to the uttermost all who come unto God through 
him. I could hardly believe such tidings. I said, You mean 
that all } T our countrymen who thus come to your patron God may 
find peace and divine favor. "No," he responded, " I mean 
all — mean you — mean everybody whom this great being has 
made to dwell on all the face of the earth, for as the Holy Book 
sa} r s : there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, for 
the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For 
whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." 

" ' But do 3 T ou mean that I can call upon him and be deliv- 
ered from this load I have carried so many years ? ' 

" 'Certainly.' 

' ' ' And be delivered now ? ' 

' ' ' Certainly. Now — says the sacred book — is the accepted 
time, behold now is the day of salvation.' 

" ' It was enough. Down I fell upon m}*- face. Aloud I 
cried unto the Great God. Through his Son I sought to come 
unto him. But, believe me, before I could well frame my words, 
— it was the day of salvation. My weary load was gone. My 
heart was full of peace and of strange new life. I knew that 
there exists a power which can deliver man and plant within 
him everlasting blessedness.' 

"Gentlemen of the World's Convention, one word and the 
story of that wanderer is complete. That truant sailor proved 
to be my own elder brother, proved to be the long lost son to 
fill whose vacant place my mourning parents had dedicated me 
to this same holy calling. M} 7 heart was broken with a double 
jo}' at this discovery. And before we left that wave-worn shore 
the day of salvation had also dawned on me. To-day I can 
testify that a perfect religion is not a dream. To-day I possess 
and can give you its credentials." 

— Just at this point in the speaker's remarks the long-con- 
tinued closeness of the atmosphere and the crushing pressure of 
the crowd proved more than I could bear. A certain dizziness 
came over me and I had to be carried from the hall. When I 
next came to consciousness, it took me a long, long time to dis- 
cover that I was safe at home in my study chair, and that I was 
waking from a weird and wonderful dream. 



THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 17 

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Graduating Classes : 
You came to-day for counsel, for words of wisdom ; you have 
received only a dream. 

Be not angry. It is not all a dream. To such as you its 
interpretation will not be difficult. 

The great world of civilization into which you are just going 
forth is an assembly hall vaster than that Meiji Kuaido which 
stands in distant Tokio. Within it are assembled in earnest 
conference the elect spirits of every nation. About its doors 
hang millions of our humanity, conscious of their own lack of 
light and truth, awaiting the discoveries of their better qualified 
representatives. Within, the highest, the never-ceasing debate 
relates to human perfection and to the means for its attainment. 
The ever eloquent debaters dwell now upon one phase or force, 
and now upon another, — but the theme is ever the same, ever 
the perfection of human beings and the way to this perfection. 
Some are seeking a perfect industrial adjustment, others a per- 
fect education, others a perfect government, others a perfect 
social order, others — that they may combine and unify all — 
are in quest of a perfect religion. To-morrow, dear friends, 
you are to receive your appointment as delegates to this World 
Convention. Therein some of you will be called upon to speak, 
all of you will be called upon to vote, in the presence of a hun- 
dred nations. Whether you yet realize it or not, you are to- 
morrow going forth to speak and to vote for or against the 
Perfect Religion. The World Convention will insist on know- 
ing what you can tell it respecting its supreme problem. And 
you will have to meet the demand in a publicity as wide as the 
world. The days of personal and national isolation are forever 
gone. Under the same roof with our vanishing American abo- 
rigines, within ear-shot of the moans of Africa, in full view of 
the cruel idolatries of Hindustan, in full knowledge of the 
hungry-souled millions of China, in the face of Europe's self- 
sophisticated and gloomy and scoffing agnosticism — in the hush 
of an Almighty Presence — you, each one of you, are going to tell 
the world what you know respecting human perfection and the 
road to its attainment. In doing it, — whether you will or no — 
you will have to pronounce for or against the Perfect Religion. 
For or against. Which it will be I have little doubt. To 



18 THE QUEST OF THE PERFECT RELIGION. 

yourselves you have long ago admitted, that there can be but 
one absolutely true and perfect religion. To yourselves you 
surely have admitted, that the perfect religion must present a 
perfect object of worship, that it must demand of man his highest 
devotion, and must promise to man his highest good. Long ago 
you must have admitted that the highest possible love should 
rule both worshipper and worshipped, and that this highest pos- 
sible love necessitates closest possible union in some form of 
life, human and divine. I but utter your inmost conviction when 
I add, that a religion consisting of supreme and mutual love 
between a perfect divine object and a perfectly responsive human 
subject can need no other credential than that which is given in 
its own uplifting and life-giving presence. 

To-day those for whom I speak — and I speak for none more 
than for myself — are glad. We rejoice that as you join our grow- 
ing Convocation and take your several stations in the world's 
wide field, you hold in your hands — I hope in your hearts also 
— the one solution to all earth's problems. To you it has been 
given to know of the divine origin, the divine possibilities, the 
divine destination of this living mystery in human form. You 
know the path of deliverance from evil, and who it is that opened 
it. You possess ideals of human perfection fairer, higher, broader 
than any of which ethnic sages have ever dreamed. You know 
of a life which even in its earthly stages is full of righteousness 
and peace, of love and good fruits. Publish it to the weary 
world. Exemplify it in church, and court, and hospital, in school- 
house and in home. Count it the prima pMlosophia, the high- 
est of all sciences, the finest of all fine arts. Let it be the one 
knowledge in which you glory, the one knowledge by which you 
seek to bring yourselves and all selves unto glory everlasting. 

Apostles of human perfection, apostles of the perfect religion, 
why should you not enlighten, wiry should you not emancipate the 
most distant continents ? One sage of Asia, wise with a lesser wis- 
dom, enlightened with a lesser light, has given ideals to millions. 
Ye are sages — more than a hundred strong. This day I commis- 
sion you, I charge you, — in Christ's name I command you : Be 
ye in truth, as He himself has styled you, the light of the world. 

And now unto the perfect Teacher of this perfect Way be 
honor, and glory, and dominion, world without end. Amen. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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